Film Reviews by Strovey

The Ballard of Cable Hogue looked at from a distance could be said to be a tale of the Old West transforming into the Modern West starting off with parched stagecoach passengers and ending with cars and motorbikes. It also touches on friendships, revenge, well sort of. Directed by Sam Peckinpah, who is usually associated with over-the-top blood-splattered violence with very few laughs, it was a surprising effort from the director.

It has to be said it has not aged well. I have to say I am not an old person in the 2000s looking down on films from way back in the past and judging them because of different times. The film was made in 1970 when I was eight and I would probably have seen it on TV about five years later. I think I would have laughed as a 13-year-old but it has not stuck in my memory like so many other films from that era and it has not aged well like so many have.

Peckinpah's Cable Hogue tale is much more gentle and although violence is there, comedy is closer to the surface. Played by Jason Robards, who was at the time right in the midst of his well-noted alcohol problems, the character is the lynchpin of the film, all else fails without him. It is to Robard’s credit that Cable Hogue is an enjoyable and fun hobolike figure that despite his gruff manner and rough ways is likable. Amazing teeth for someone who never looked after himself too.

The story starts off well and you would have been excused for thinking it was a reasonably serious film then suddenly it veers off into Benny Hill territory with close-ups and ‘flashbacks’ to Stella Stevens' cleavage and animated winking Indian Chief on a dollar bill as Robards character realises what the shimming and smiling Stevens character is and he wants to pay for her services. Soon after we get a ‘comedic’ escape. It jars, is not particularly funny and seems as if it is from a different film. Also the Benny Hill speeded-up film – come on, it worked on the Benny Hill show but in a feature film for laughs?

There are problems from the minute we see Stevens as she is clearly the film's ‘eye-candy’ and her breasts plumped up are the co-stars. Then she gets to have an entirely unconvincing relationship with Robard and we are off into ‘what exactly is this film about’ territory again. The soundtrack in the film for the romance sequences is called Butterfly Mornings and is worse than the sequences itself. I presume a producer’s relative wrote it and it had to be included. Awful.

David Warner is also strong in the role of the lecherous priest and gives fun support alongside stalwarts Strother Martin, playing the same role he always did and Slim Pickens to name two. The landscapes and cinematography and look of the West is very good and gives you a feeling of that time but the flaw is the film and story itself.

The Ballard of Cable Hogue is a mess of a film with forced and unfunny humour, an odd story that is about revenge, greed, corruption and the end of the Old West that would have been better fixing a tone from the start and concentrating on perhaps just one or maybe two themes. The acting of the leads is okay, Stella Stevens is basically treated as a sex-object, breasts and bum on display, and Jason Robards is strong enough to carry what entertainment I got.

You cannot help feeling that Peckinpah was trying to be very different from his reputation but he tried too hard.

For some reason, this film gets a lot of love and praise from fellow film watchers. I cannot help feeling this is partially to do with the director.

For me, Sam Peckinpah or not, I will never watch The Ballard of Cable Hogue again.

The holdovers is so, so, much like the 1970s films I used to catch on BBC2 on Saturday night as a teenager when everyone else in the house was out. The only thing missing was a young Bud Cort playing the pupil. Now this might seem like a humble brag about my film opinion credentials but it has to be said the makers stuck up a faux AA film certificate and seventies logos for Miramax and Focus Features so you are sort of given the biggest clues possible. I must say that director Alexander Ryan and writer David Hemingson have hit that nostalgic nail squarely on the head.

We are not getting anything earth-shattering in what we see as the story unfolds but it is familiar, it is made very well and happily familiar. Touching, funny and poignant in equal portions as you watch you know what is going to happen, how Giamatti’s character is going to evolve along with Sessa’s and probably how things will end. The joy of the whole film is getting from point A to point B. Even at over two hours in the running, it was worth it.

Paul Giamatti’s character Hunham could easily be a parody, or very pantomime like but it is to his credit, his skill, as an actor that even at the beginning you can sympathise with him, even though he is being an arse. Likewise, the impressive ‘newcomer’ Dominic Sessa holds his own against Giamatti and never tips over into stereotypical. Da'Vine Joy Randolph’s Mary is the glue that holds the tale and indeed the men together as she suffers unbearable sorry with dignity and a few home truths. Even Sessa’s argumentative and unappealing classmates are portrayed well on the screen alongside the two more pantomime-like villains, the parents and the headmaster. Everyone you see seems to be on their A game and that has to be a testament to Ryan’s skill as a director.

The Holdovers as a story will not be hurried along and for the first hour we are getting the groundwork for the finale. Sometimes this can be tiresome but in this filmmaker and cast’s hands not so.

With spoiling anything, as in real life, what you see is not necessarily what you get and people can and will do things you do not always suspect.

The seventies locations in Maine and Boston are perfect, apparently on location the real winter set in and the snow you see is genuine. Everything about the film says 1970s without forcing it down your throat unconvincingly.

Truthfully I could watch this film again right off the bat and everything about it was enjoyable, the cinematography, the directing, the acting, the writing, all fun and very touching. Paul Giamatti is on top form here closely followed by his fellow cast.

Highly recommended.

If you asked me to succinctly sum up The Rover, and yes I know how ironic that is, I would say it was ‘a realistic Mad Max’. Like the original George Miller dystopian lawless take on a collapsed future, it is set in the dusty abandoned Australian Outback and features a relentless and violent protagonist. The films part ways here though with The Rover giving you Eric, superbly played by the always impressive Guy Pearce, is what you could imagine a character like him would be.

Eric is not interested in conversation, anyone else’s problems, or telling his life story, so basically apart from one small exposition it is left to you, watching, to make your mind up. What has happened to the world, we do not know, we know there is an attempt at law and order but basically where the film is set is worst the Wild West at its wildest.

Here, for some, is the film’s weakness, you do not have any detailed back story, just a dirty unpleasant fellow, and he is, determined to get back a car for no reason you are given. He will, and does, kill people for it.

For me, this film, and type of tale, was perfect. The focus of the film is Eric and Rey, Robert Pattinson moving on very firmly from the Twilight series, and both actors give strong believable displays. The costume and makeup are perfect, at no point did I believe they were nothing more than scummy, dirty, murderous, survivors. Pattinson in fact has the harder task playing the somewhat simple and naïve Rey, twitches, and blank looks, this can look like a parody or become tiring but Pattinson pitches it perfectly. Guy Pearce compliments this with a tough, mean, dirty, murderous man, but unlike most films in this style at no point did I think he was indestructible, tougher than anyone else or could not end up dead by the end of the film. He was just a man, placed into a horrible circumstance, who could handle a gun and knew what he wanted to do.

Director and writer David Michod is refreshingly not frightened of silence and a character we focus on who just does not like talking. But for all the grim, dirty, bleakness, somewhere at the heart of The Rover is the tale of alienation, cruelty and despair that is thrust onto people who could be just like you and me. Guy Pearce’s Eric slowly thawing to Rey, and it a small thaw, lets us into little glimpses of his ‘post-collapse’ world.

The car chase early on in the film sets you up for what are about to see, it is probably nothing like you have seen before or after and all the better for it. Add in a fantastic music score by Antony Partos and the whole look and feel of the film is enhanced. Equally important and impressive is the cinematography by Natasha Braier, production design, Jo Ford and art and set decoration which are as important as the acting and directing, all women I am pleased to say.

The Rover, much like Eric, gives you glimpses into its world but in the end you have to take in what you are watching, make your own mind up and either go along with the journey or not. I feel everything in this dirty, horrible film that makes me really like it is exactly what makes others hate it. It most definitely is ‘anti-Hollywood’ without being made for that reason.

The ending is perfect, you think you know for a split second at the reveal why Eric wants his car back and even that rug is pulled from under you. It is perfect and just underlines the tale to a tee.

I recommend this film if my views above appeal to you but if you like clean-cut heroes who cannot be beaten and Robert Pattinson as the clean-cut romantic hero, in a story where everything makes sense, and is laid out for you to enjoy then maybe give it a miss.

I loved it.

I am not a connoisseur of Icelandic films but I have seen two in fairly close succession and before we get to my opinion of this particular film you have to be aware of the style of films they appear to be. Without doubt pacing is slower and histrionics and big showy acting is out. But from the two films I saw I definitely got a feeling that somewhere behind the nuts and bolts, the making of the film those responsible were quietly chuckling. Woman at War is billed as a drama comedy but Lamb was not, yet somewhere there was a smile in the making, even amongst the dark and weird storyline.

Woman at War certainly has a smile throughout, it is not belly laugh or silly but the makers, whilst trying to get a serious and earnest point across definitely do not take themselves ultra seriously. Just to underline this the background music is provided by a trio of Icelandic musicians who sit in the background playing their instruments and watching the action and slightly reacting to it. Later on, they appear to be joined by Ukrainian traditional singers in traditional costumes, the story and the financing is partly Ukrainian. Quirky and I found it funny but I can imagine it could annoy other viewers.

Benedikt Erlingsson the director and writer, alongside Olafur Egilsson, certainly makes no bones or disguises where he lies when it comes to the environment and the role big industry currently plays in the world. Is it biased and only shows one side of the coin? Yes it is but the truth probably leans more towards his viewpoint particularly in the six years since the film was released.

Very much like Lamb, the film has an unsung star and that is the beautiful, civilisation-free, scenery of the Icelandic Highlands and anyone who thinks that this part of the world really needs powerlines, industrial buildings and all the trapping those bring perhaps needs to see the side of the coin presented here.

The film centres around our main character Halla played with a natural ‘everywoman’ energy by Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, and without her magnetism and believable display Woman at War would sink into the mire of the category non-English language forgettable. She also doubles up as the unlikely and massive, obvious, plot-point twin sister Asa.

Whilst the tale of an unlikely fifty-year-old eco-warrior blowing up powerlines, escaping modern policing, and tracking methods is wholly unlikely it is enjoyable and as the film meanders along you do begin to wonder if there is a point to the story or if it is a demonstration film for potential aggressive and let us face violent environmentalists.

The McGuffin that drives Halla to make fateful decisions and ponder on her path is the adaptation of a Ukrainian orphan who has no family due to war. The problem was this device, this driver of the story is in a way a serious point and the path taken by Halla and her sister is so unlikely and ridiculous, considering how much Halla wanted to adopt, that you feel the director/writer dedicated little time of thought to this part of the story.

The normal-person Mission Impossible action is great and shows how you could avoid detection but Halla is not indestructible like Tom Cruise, needs help and only just gets away. It is fun and well put together. Likewise, the Icelandic makers do not shy away from the seemingly inherent racism of some of their people by having a running ‘joke’ where a Colombia bicycle tourist keeps getting hauled in by the authorities, the implication being because he is brown, not Icelandic and near the area he has something to do with it.

If you like to see films made from other cultures and country's point of view then Woman at War is a good film but if your patience with the pacing and speed of storytelling is short be prepared for the fast-forward button to be used.

Better Living Through Chemistry does not tread any new ground even for the year it was released in 2014. After all, if you regularly watch films how many times have you seen the quiet, underconfident, down-trodden male character, and it usually is a man, turn things around and become a swaggering lothario or similar? Frankly, it is a lot.

The only difference for this or any other film is what causes this dramatic change in the lead character's life, how they respond and deal with it, the effect it has on those around them, the outcome, and of course the cast, if it is strong then the film is usually more watchable.

So, we have Better Living Through Chemistry.

The lead is Sam Rockwell therefore the film will be worth watching as he has on-screen charisma to spare and always livens up proceedings. He is ably supported by an unrecognisable, at first, Olivia Wilde who does well with a well-worn role that at least has a slight wrinkle in her story path near the end. The other main character is Michelle Monaghan who is wasted in the role of Doug’s wife as a horrible person with no redeeming features. It is played too over-the-top and could have been reeled back in. Why is this so? The best guess is the makers felt the story would not work if she is not so one-dimensional.

Also, we have a Jane Fonda voice-over, perhaps an afterthought, probably not necessary. Did the writers/directors lack confidence in the script or screenplay?

Rockwell effortlessly plays his role, seemingly not getting out of first gear, yet he is the only reason that my interest was kept. The best part of the whole film is his bonding scenes with his son however unlikely it was.

He is the brightest spot in a film that is frankly somewhat dull. It is competently directed, the acting from the rest of the cast is okay, it is not their fault they have cardboard cutout characters that have been in many, many films before this one, and therein lies the rub. It is the screenplay, we have all seen this before, dare I say it is ‘hack’ the loveable loser who turns his life around, nearly loses it all and then redemption. Of course it is easy for me to sit here ten years later criticising aspects when I don't know how the script originally looked, the changes that were forced on the actors and makers, but all I can judge is what is in front of me.

No one in the film is likable as a person. They are all a-holes, even Rockwell’s Doug is reprehensible and does morally repugnant things despite us supposedly having to root for him. I will give the writers, who also directed, Geoff Moore and David Posamentier, some credit for twisting expectations/ideas about a few characters but as I have noted all the characters are reprehensible so it is not the rug they think they pulled from under the audience.

All-in-all Better Living Through Chemistry is watchable, because of the cast, and a few laughs, but sadly it lacks anything different to see and after a few days you are bound to get it mixed up with a dozen other similar films when you try to recall it.

Shame, because with the cast, the tale should have been much better. Perhaps told with a darker hue it could have been a quite deliciously horrible tale. It's not that is a bad or an awful film it is just it could have been so much better.

Luke Scott is Ridley Scott’s son and it is Ridley’s production company that produced Morgan in 2016, so far so the usual way the cinematic world runs, but with this connection and the way that the story unfolds I could not help but link father to son in some way. Without spoiling exactly what is happening in Morgan it could be taken as an origin story for the unforgettable Roy Batty and his comrades. That is just me saying that no one else. The two Scotts are the only connection because while the late Hauer’s Roy Batty is iconic and unforgettable, Anya Taylor-Joy’s Morgan is dull as dishwater and entirely forgettable.

Morgan is a film that thinks it is far cleverer than it is. It is trying to say, just like Luke’s dad’s Blade Runner is trying to say, ‘what is it to be human’ and ‘who are the real monsters’ but this is a common theme in modern AI/robot films, so if you are going to ask the question you now have to ask it in a special or interesting way. Ex-Machina did this perfectly.

In the end, Morgan is just an average piece of science fiction with some action/peril near the end and if you are not paying full attention it might surprise you with the outcome, I was, and guessed the ‘surprise’ and the ending in short order.

Kate Mara, Roony’s older sister, is the mysterious protagonist who at first is the baddy but then flips your feelings for her, more than once. That in itself is interesting and fun. But, and it is a big but, the way Mara plays Lee Weathers makes it blindingly obvious what she is about and who she is, this makes you sigh and raise your eyebrows, about a quarter of an hour into the run time. Was it bad acting, writing or directing? Surely Luke Scott could have told her to reign it in a bit?

Mara herself is surrounded by a group of good and well-renowned actors, all of whom I am convinced did this film to either do Ridley Scott a favour or to get into his good books. Brian Cox bookends the film to let you know what is going on and what happened, Jennifer Jason Leigh is sort of in it but if you had cut her part out it would have made no difference to the story. Toby Jones plays a fairly cardboard cut-out character in the tale, which is a shame, and Paul Giamatti plays the world’s worst psychologist, so poorly written, if they had said, ‘That doctor, he was not a doctor but a plumber faking it’ that would have been believable. Michelle Yeoh again seems to be in the film but really her screen time is in minutes. All these great actors pop in and pop off to save on salaries I presume.

Probably the most interesting character was nutritionist Skip, Boyd Holbrook, his inclusion made me think there was something more to his role. There was not, he was just a nutritionist. A waste.

On the whole, Morgan was watchable, I cannot help feeling poor old Anya Taylor-Joy got the role because of her looks, which is a shame, but I will never watch it again and I will not remember it in a month or so.

For a film that tries to be intellectual and challenging about an interesting and controversial subject, it tends to get more stupid and easier to figure out what is happening the longer it runs.

It was a wasted opportunity and sadly had the reek of ‘the old boys club’ about it in some places.

Shame, a story about how the human race developed and made the likes of Roy Batty many decades before the time of Blade Runner would have been an interesting tale.

From a storytelling point of view Past Lives pulls no punches and for me was saying from the start Nay Young or Nora and Hae Sung were meant to be together from the moment they bonded as children, but as the old, tired and well-worn cliché goes, life got in the way. The question is, what do you do when it does? Past Lives looks at this and gives us the answer it does.

Only a three-hander with Lee and Yoo beautiful and soulfully playing the leads, there is obvious chemistry on screen, their performances are well complimented by John Magaro, in a role, if this were a rom-com, he would be the ‘baddy’. You know the trope and decent, earnest man, who has done nothing wrong, but gets dumped by his wife (or fiancée more properly) for the flashy, slightly wacky leading man. Well in this role Magaro is a decent caring man and acts so well you can see his conflict but the willingness to let his wife explore her past and feelings and discuss them all with her old friend. It is a great piece of believable acting and just once it is nice to see three people in a love story of sorts who are not a-holes, not one of them.

Past Lives boiled down to his basic components is a ‘What If?’ tale. What if they had got together back at school, what if they had stayed in touch for twenty years. All questions of course that can never be answered and you could be forgiven for saying there is literally no point asking those questions.

But of course, we all do.

Celine Song who wrote and directed Past Lives has a soft touch and the whole film sensitively approaches its topics. There is the clash of cultures, longing and nostalgia and love, and what loving a person really means.

It was a pleasure to see a soft gentle film with normal characters thrown into perhaps a slightly abnormal situation but nevertheless believable and entertaining. It is slow and quiet so if that is not your bag, if you have to have a baddie to boo and goodies to root for, with a lot of screaming and shouting, Past Lives is not for you.

There is a sense of anticipation throughout the story, and although the pace is slow it somehow still zips along, the change in language from the leads, from Korean, to English and back to Korean again certainly keeps your focus but also nothing is signposted or given away so you do not know how this will end. How you want it to end is up to you.

I have to recommend Past Lives as a sensitive and intelligent take on a non-traditional ‘love-triangle’ that is acted realistically, sensitively and not without a sense of fun and some sorrow. It is great.

The Last Outlaw was made in 1993 and for this reason, and this reason alone, I harshly judge it. The story, if made in the 1950s, would have been a tad familiar and cliched but made many years after that era it is unforgivable.

The logic or lack of it in the screenplay and writing is shocking and actually distracts from the story being told.

Graff is a psychotic idiot who after twenty-nine successful band robberies somehow manages to balls this one up so much everyone who such much as looks at the bank is killed horribly by explosion or gunfire. His gang, so successful and deadly, does not seem to have any idea of teamwork or cooperation but constantly fight and argue with each other – this is to show how rough and tough they are, it makes them look like utter idiots. Talking of which they are just a cliché gang with little to no character development so you know they are disposable as far as the story goes. Even Graff and Eustis, the main characters, have no real character other than baddy gang leader, and goodie gang member.

People could kill or capture Graff and his gang a few times but somehow do not, otherwise the story ends. Nothing makes a great deal of sense and the dialogue is lame and so familiar.

I have to admit I sort of lost focus halfway through this film, completely missing Steve Buscemi being shot and killed apparently.

If the film is worth watching it is worth watching just to see some good actors in very early roles, with Dermot Mulroney, John C Riley, Ted Levine, Keith David and Steve Buscemi early and centre stage.

Levine as Potts, is easily the most interesting character out of everyone, and he is very one-dimensional, Gabby Hayes voiced, looking out only for himself yet somehow brave and noble too, makes the film a tiny bit more tolerable. Riley, David and Buscemi do the best with what they have and show why they all had successful and bountiful careers in the years to come.

What jars is Mulroney, who as the titular hero, seems a little out of place, a little too modern, it is not a bad performance and you can root for him, but he just gives the impression he is going to walk around a rocky outcrop and pop in his car and drive home.

What ruins this film for me is an ego, a huge ego. Mickey Rourke, a big name at the time, he was clearly able to get his own way with how his character looked and behaved. A ridiculous neatly cropped horseshoe moustache, too much eyeliner, clear plastic surgery, anachronistic clothing and behaviour, he is almost like some mystical superhero and all his portrayal says is ‘I’m cool, I’m Mickey Rourke, here are my wonders to behold’ it is distracting and frankly awful. He looks a bit too rock-starish to me, someone who has forgotten what acting is supposed to do.

It detracts from any positive points the film has.

Rumour has it a lot of his dialogue had to be post-dubbed due to classic mumbleathon.

The story is familiar, a mishmash of Western conventions, outlaws robbing banks because the ‘South’ lost the war – I mean that is okay then – and then one of their number turns against them to hunt them down.

Of course, this is Mickey Rourke and he gets to kill them off one by one, leaving his nemesis to last, he is like an avenging angel, he never, ever misses what he is shooting at, just like the real Wild West, so clichéd and so boring for a film about the west made in the nineties.

The finale has a last-minute turnaround, how many times have you seen that? Our pop-star-like outlaw anti-hero instead of just killing his sworn enemy lets him ‘draw’ on him at the end. The final scene is plain comedic in its denouement I just smiled all the way through. Utter drivel.

Just go away and produce something new please, I would have said that in 1993 and I say it now.

I used taciturn in my synopsis of this film and I was not kidding. With an overwhelming feeling of being ‘European’ we get long sweeping and frankly beautiful vistas of Iceland’s cold and mountainous wilderness and little dialogue. The main actors Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Guonason go about their characters’ lives as if they were really them. Just working hard and talking little. Real life if you like.

The acting immediately makes you feel that the two characters are happy with each other and indeed seem to love their lives but something is missing, something unsaid. This is well-acted and well-directed. It is patience and time that will lead you to the answer. Many filmgoers these days do not have this and I can imagine more than a few viewers turning the film off or leaving the showing within half an hour of the start.

But your patience is rewarded with a very slow-burning and bizarre tale that seems to have some roots in folklore, without research I cannot say if it is or is not, but if not it should be.

Now without knowing you could take what you see literally and it becomes a very weird, slightly spooky tale or it could be something allegorical where you need to look past the initial images and story. Truth be told I do not know but I did enjoy what I saw.

If I say any more about this story I will basically give away the simple storyline and as there are only three main actors, plus a voice actor, who all do fine believable jobs there is nothing much more I add.

The actors are all particularly good and naturalistic in the style of European acting, with a lot less flash and more slow burn. The Icelandic remote mountainous scenery reminds me of where I live now, the Scottish Highlands, and I can imagine that the rural work life is actually similar to this for anyone familiar with it.

What happens at the very beginning of the film and in the last half an hour or so does not happen too often to anyone – I hope.

Overall, Lamb is a slow-paced, slow-burning, bonkers tale with a fairly surprising ending, although what precedes the ending does point to the conclusion if you are paying attention. The acting and cinematography are top notch, Noomi Rapace always seems to be good no matter what she is asked to do.

I liked Lamb but I have to say if like a bit of whizz-bang action, actors getting very emotional and smashing cups to show that and so forth, this is not going to be the film for you but if you are looking for something weird and different this might be.

Apparently actually filmed in 1975 but not put together enough to be released until 1979 due to money and production problems Winter Kills is a singular and unique paranoid conspiracy thriller, basically a wackier JFK before Oliver Stone even thought about making stuff up about that president. With entirely fictional characters and set up, Joe Diamond is not Jack Ruby surely, Winter Kills is a plausible and possibly more so than some of the things I have seen written and filmed about Kennedy’s murder.

Interesting, tonally odd, serious in some places and purposely silly in other places Winter Kills has a backstory all of its own which in some ways is stranger, more violent and conspiracy-filled than the actual fiction.

What you get with Winter Kills is a fun romp with deception, murder and big money. A young Jeff Bridges fronts up the film and is superbly counterpointed by his on-screen father John Huston, a well-regarded director in his own right, showing here that he can act as well as his behind-the-camera work given the right role.

The supporting cast, some who only seem to have been flown in for a few scenes, all prop up a reasonably ludicrous story that nowadays if you voiced it half the world, including lots of British ex-professional footballers, would believe instantly. At points we get Antony Perkins, playing a deliciously silly role that some people believe actually exists in the real world right now, Sterling Hayden, Eli Wallach, always good value, Toshiro Mifune and even Elizabeth Taylor. All these people popping up, doing their stuff and leaving make you grin if you love films. Hayden seems to be having a ball as the tank owning nutter – or these days a normal bloke.

The more we get into the story, the more Jeff Bridges chases after the gloriously attractive Belinda Bauer, whose orgasm proves she could have a career in porn if all else fails, and she certainly looked great nude, sorry, but she really did, the more people die as soon as they give some interesting information, the more you know this is a black-hearted comedy that a lot of people watching then, and definitely watching now would take seriously.

The mob, political and family influence and the film industry all play a part in the conspiracy in a wacky and sort of complex way and let us just leave it at that.

The problem Winter Kills has, and its troubled production may well have contributed, is director Reichert cannot quite get the balance or mix correct, so going from one plot point can be daft and even funny and then suddenly someone is murdered or you are told they are in a ‘straight’ thriller way. Whatever you see on the screen though you are entertained and it has to be said you are not going to be bored.

All of the actors give solid displays, which is great considering the problems with pay and other important things that happened during the filming and the whole story is anchored by Bridges's likeable and sincere portrayal of Nick, the man stuck slap-bang in the middle of the subterfuge and even though it is against his better nature he takes it on.

Winter Kills is an inconsistent and not so well-known conspiracy thriller, clearly a take on the JFK assassination but with all the names changed and is present in a unique and fun way, perhaps very seventies it still stands up today, if a little disjointed and tonally variable. Nevertheless, the story is fun, everything gets to the point and does not meander the lead roles are played with some aplomb.

If you find Winter Kills on some streaming channel or a cheap film hire I recommend watching it, just remember in the seventies it was made a fun, madcap take on a real murder or a real president, it is not a documentary and nothing you see is ‘fact’.

Just enjoy Jeff Bridges and the entertainment.

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean is an odd film made by prolific filmmaker John Huston, with star Paul Newman front and centre. Make no mistake this film revolves around Newman who seems to be having fun interpreting the eccentric real-life character Bean.

The film itself has an odd flow and feel to the story with characters breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the camera, Perkins early in the film as the Reverand LaSalle and then Tab Hunter as doomed criminal Sam Dodd, then it does not seem to happen again although we get various characters voice-overs. Odd and very inconsistent.

Then again the whole film is extremely inconsistent, originally it seems as though you are watching a rip-roaring, slightly dark, hangings and shootings, comedy-western, which transforms into a melancholy sad section and finally everything goes off the rails with the main character and star disappearing and coming back like some sort of cowboy terminator as everyone and everything gets shot, burned down, destroyed and ‘revenged’. There is not a narrative story it is just a lot of set pieces, it is odd and makes for an unsatisfying tale.

The cast is great and great fun. Subtlety is off the menu and everything is turned up to eleven. No one is restrained and Newman in particular is given free reign to put Bean on the screen as he wanted. Depending on your temperament this will be a plus or a minus. I found the film, for all of its strange presentation and story, such as it is, entertaining, and overall, it was just great fun.

Being of a certain age it was great to see Ned Beatty, Roddy McDowall, Jacqueline Bisset and Stacey Keach looking young and vibrant. Talking of which one of the favourite sections of the film for many was Stacey Keach as an albino bad-man Bad Bob, the ‘real’ Bad Bob. I found this section annoying, how it ended was fun and funny but the whole character and how it was presented seemed from a different more comedic and comic-book-style film. It jarred with everything that came before and after.

Interesting to see an exceptionally beautiful and young Victoria Principal, aged twenty-one and so good-looking it should be criminal, playing, yup you guessed it, a Mexican. Being so young and at the start of a long career she more than holds her own against an experienced cast.

Judge Roy Bean was a real-life person who lived around the area shown in the film but if you are looking for historical facts you are going to be massively disappointed but perhaps it could be said that straying so far from the real story means Huston is saying do not look for the facts and enjoy yourself.

Bean was probably a lot more of a rapscallion and seemed from history to be mainly out for himself in the early years but did give some of his fortune back to the community in later life. In the film, he hangs and shoots a lot of people, not true, and he lives way into the time of World War One and beyond which is at least eleven years longer than he did, he had more than one child and he never rode off into the desert to return decades later.

Oddly, the final act is so poor it nearly drags the entire film down. Including some stunt work with characters being shot and blown up, looking very much like ‘stunt work’.

The ending, with Ava Gardner dropping in as Lilly Langtry, (presumably to earn some dollars which she admitted in her later years), is poignant and sad, but utter nonsense. A fitting finale for the entire film, that whilst entertaining with some top actors in cameo roles and Paul Newman at his charismatic best, is nonsensical and cartoonlike in places.

The cinematography is impressive, along with the overall look and feel of the ‘old West’. Outlaws are morally and matter-of-factly ambiguous, they look scruffy and desert-weary, the saloon bar ladies are not virtuous beauties but a bit rough and ready, and the town looks dusty and down at heels.

Firstly, if you are going to watch this film Werewolf Santa which I think was called Frost Bites originally (a much better title in my opinion) you have to understand two things, it is very, very cheap, I would say loose change down the sofa budget and it is short, in truth mercifully, coming in at one hour and nine minutes.

Neither of the preceding statements is meant to be a vicious or mean criticism either. I am on record many times saying a strict or non-existent budget can often drive makers to be highly innovative in their production and to everyone’s advantage. With Werewolf Santa we are going for extremely silly or that seems to be the feeling from the start and as we progress, here I think the basis of the story and what we are being asked to view is definitely a bridge too far with the budget.

The early scenes with Katherine Rodden trying to make another episode of her YouTube channel are believable and played virtually straight. I did not like comic book panels and voice-over provided by John Bloom as it felt like and almost certainly was, ‘filler’. Emily Booth is always a coquettish presence and good value for money, which with her in the film I am guessing it is where all of the budget went or perhaps it was free, either way, they got a good deal and the film is better with Emily in it. The problem is she does not seem to have much chemistry with Mark Arnold who is easily the most experienced person you will see on the screen and he is clearly and weirdly miscast.

It has to be said that the cast all give their all and you could not complain about any effort put in, even if some it seemed at times a bit school-production. Talking of which the effects, the werewolf Santa itself was in a word ‘crap’ and could have been better, and no budget is no excuse. But the biggest problem aside from those outlined previously is you can almost see where the writing, by director Airell Anthony Hayles, loses its way as the story concludes, there are few scares and apart from Booth and the hole she digs herself about ‘dogging’ the laughs are not there. Even though the acting and the effects are messy they still are not as messy as the story which really meanders, gets lost and thus loses your attention as it just goes from set piece to set piece and daft exposition to the end.

Werewolf Santa is a ridiculously cheap film, and that in itself is not a criticism in any way but it also is not an excuse, I would suggest that there are many, many cheap films out there that can be looked at to see how to make them more engaging and more fun and to look less cheap. Emily Booth and her fellow cast members really make an effort so that is a big tick in the positive box, Emily Booth makes it fun anyway and the dogging scene and dialogue is surely just put in there to play on her ‘sexy media persona’ and it works.

Would I recommend Werewolf Santa the answer is no – most people will be less tolerant than me of minus-money budget films but if you are interested in filmmaking and not simply great filmmaking it is worth a look and anyway who does not love Emily?

Firstly, this is an Asylum film so you know what you are going to get, some okay acting, some really poor acting, some okayish screen effects and created by a new user to Photoshop. All done with an underlying sense of humour and a bit of cheek.

Here though the film is set in the world of Asylum, so they are a film maker in the story and it is their films that cause the disaster. Asylum milk this well, especially early on and to completely frank it is funny. Particularly later in the film where we meet ‘actor’ played by Mike Gaglio, sort of playing himself, in a film, it is rather funny as so meta your head might start spinning.

The effects are absolutely spot-on Asylum effects, you can see where they give the creators a budget limit but the intent is there.

Credit where credit is due, despite the absolute lack of any care for any details of US military operations, ranks or how it all works, and clearly limited locations, the one thing that Asylum do is unashamedly have women in leading and important roles. In Monster Armageddon it is the unlikely-looking Maddy and Quinn played by the delightful Lindsey Marie Wilson and Jhey Castles both attractive and sparky ladies but at no point did I think they were sisters. Nevertheless, Asylum unashamedly put them front and centre as the heroes and also sort of did it in a way that says, ‘this is completely normal’. No fanfare or highlighting, two ladies, in the lead, saving the day, let us get on with it. Fair play to them.

Not only that but the people who bring how the ‘aliens’ are operating to the authorities' attention are also a woman, and a brown man, who are happily married.

As mentioned before the acting varies from scene to scene with probably the worst being in an obvious cost-saving scene as the main protagonists escape from the marauding ‘crocosaurus’ they comment on what they can see as they look out of the helicopter window. Except all of them seem to be watching a Sunday picnic or seem as emotionally affected in that way. Michael Pare probably the most experienced actor in the film is the worst, he is looking at a 200-foot-long crocodile destroying Washington DC with literally no emotion on his face.

The story wobbles all over the place and like many Asylum films seems to have changed at the last minute, cutting scenes or dialogue out that then makes things a bit incomprehensible but if you are in the right mood, that is the fun of it.

We get everything, from giant robots, snakes, sharks and so on, but we also get potato-headed aliens and zombies, the cleanest looking unscary zombies ever to have risen from the dead but they are there.

Overall, Monster Armageddon or 2025 Armageddon as it appears to be called now is everything bad about Asylum, cheap, silly, nonsensical and rushed and everything good, cheap, silly, nonsensical and too rushed. But the winner for the company is the premise. Base everything on your films, promote them in the film, take the mickey and even cause an alien invasion. That has never happened to MGM.

If you cannot stand any Asylum film and I admit I am not a big fan and have never been, you might be able to bear this effort. If you love watching their style of silly rip-off fun then you will love this.

You pays your money and takes your choice.

The film Meg 2 gives all the appearances of being written by a very excitable 11-year-old who wanted to watch, monsters, robot suits, baddies and see explosions, monsters eating people and a hero killing the monsters, oh and guns and shooting.

Well anyone who wants to watch this has got it and Meg 2 is ten out of ten for that.

If you are over eleven years of age and have a discerning part of your brain that can reason and see at least a fundamental logic then the Meg 2 will annoy you and in fact, as it did with me, bore you.

The positives in it are Jason Statham and Jason Statham and even then I am not so sure I could see the glint of his bank-balance in his eyes because even with his history of hokey and utterly stoooopid films this one towers above them.

The other cast members are ‘I’ve seen him in something before’ and ‘She looks like cut-price Kate Winslett’ and ‘Who?’ They try their best and are enthusiastic but I feel that this film is not their path to fame and stardom even if they were ‘acting with The Stath’ and being directed by ‘Ben – hang your head in shame – Wheatley’.

The opening scene is similar to something I saw on an Attenborough documentary on dinosaurs but was more believable how it occurred and featured a different sea monster because megalodons did not exist at the same time as tyrannosaurus rexes and the whole shock event was just there to say the Meg is bigger and scarier than that Jurassic Park star and much more powerful. Ironically Jurassic Park jumped the shark some time back. This opening ‘wow’ scene does not make any sense and is highly unrealistic and thus we are set up for the entire film.

The visual effects are poor at times, especially things on the surface of the sea, some of the sharks look impressive in certain setups, but other times not so much. I thought the whole octopus part was almost a parody because of what happened and how it looked but no apparently it was meant to be terrifying.

The lizard things, not sure how they lived where they did, not sure why they just went around killing people because predators in my experience tend to kill other animals to eat them. These just wanted to kill people, that was it.

Statham plays Statham as per usual, still does not know how to use a razor but luckily enough for him his stubble stays the same length in perpetuity. He looks like he is carved from granite, he just looks tough, I suspect he probably is fairly tough, so why make his character impervious to the laws of nature and physics? This is a common theme nowadays, even the recent ‘The Killer’ on Netflix set it up with a calculating, clever and cerebral assassin still being indestructible in one scene as his skinny frame survives a battering that would literally kill anyone – why do filmmakers to this? In films made for grown adults?

The film is poor and has little to no redeeming features.

It does however open up an interesting can-of-worms. Clearly the brief was ‘bigger’, and expand on everything the first film had. S, more megalodons, more monsters, more peril, more evil baddies and just more. I have no doubt there is an audience that will lap this up so we will get the terrible prospect of Meg 3: This Time It is Personal soon.

Why can’t the makers, writers and actors look at the first film and say ‘how can we improve on this’ (not difficult but they failed) how can we expand the lore and make it interesting, perhaps we can make it different? Nope, they just doubled down and made it stupider. But this is not the Meg 2’s fault they are just following a too well-worn path now in moviemaking. Is it us the audience’s fault, it seems that films that deal with serious problems or have stories that do not involve explosions and monsters or superheroes do not do as well.

Is the audience getting dumber and the films are being made for them?

Do dopey films make a dopier audience?

The Flash is an odd superhero movie, it has the elements we expect, a lot of explosions, a lot of cars flipping end over end, a lot of peril for people, including a ‘shower of babies’ that the hero eventually puts a stop to – but only just. Yet it mixes this in with a dorky alter-ego and some misplaced and at times rather low-brow humour. Pile on top of this a lot of people getting killed, and there were a lot of families of servicepeople who were going to be affected and the unpleasant stabbing murder of the main protagonist's mother. What age group was it aimed at? I have no idea.

The story is certainly nothing we have not seen in many films, books and other fiction before. A Sound of Thunder always comes to mind when anyone tackles this because the outcome, the moral, is always exactly the same. You cannot go back in time to change one thing without changing everything.

In The Flash it seems as if the writers could not resist the temptation to make this simple premise well, simple really. It gets convoluted and odd and makes little sense the longer it goes on. What it really seems to be is a good excuse for some hard-core comic-book, super-hero nostalgia porn, as every version ever put on any screen (in the Western hemisphere at least) of Superman and few other heroes pops up for a little cameo, including poor old Nic Cage’s fervent wish from decades ago. For me it did nothing but for some viewers I would imagine it was Nirvana.

The visual effects on display are at times poor, and Polar Express 'uncanny', which considering the development time and money spent is a poor return. Apparently, this was deliberate as it was supposed to represent the view through Barry’s eyes in the alternate dimensions and it had absolutely nothing with impossible deadlines and penny-pinching.

Ezra Miller plays dual roles and much like Ezra’s off-screen persona they are both at times good and others really bad. Playing up the camera and hamming it for it is worth and then in an emotional scene with his mother getting the effect required from the acting. Puzzling. Regardless of the events beyond the camera, I can only judge what I see on the screen. It is not a review of dreadful events in the real world although I have opinions on those, definitely for another Blog or place.

Throughout the run time we get superhero returnees, including croaky-voiced Affleck and Keaton as Batpeople and discarding with Henry Cavill we get Sash Calle donning a figure-hugging CGI suit as Superman’s niece who does very little except get angry and killed – about twenty times.

Michael Shannon returns as Zod, again looks mean, badly CGIed and does little else.

Really the whole thing is a mess but I am glad every probably got paid well at least.

Sprinkle throughout as some familiar faces to UK viewers, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Kieran Hodgson, who was sat on the sofa of Glaswegian living-room only a few days previously.

The more enjoyable aspects are when Barry interacts with his parents, the ever-reliable Ron Livingston and Maribel Verdú but people who watch The Flash do not want to see that, they are there for their heroes and explosions, and flipping cars and derring-do and to be fair you do get that.

Overall, The Flash had a job to do, to persuade me to review my bias against comic-book superhero films and it failed. Flashing lights, a billion dollars worth of CGI and visual effects, non-stop violence where peripheral characters die, a flawed protagonist, who starts out a bit wonky but gets better and learns near the end and a big ‘twist’ that I guessed the first time I saw the character.

If this was for adults it was too simplistic and too illogical and if it was for the younger generation too violent and panders too much.